Safety starts at the top, and the CEO of Cimarron Electric Cooperative has made sure those words aren't just a slogan, but an ingrained value shared among all employees at the Oklahoma co-op.

When Aaron Roark became CEO of the Kingfisher, Oklahoma-based co-op in 2022 after serving as chief financial officer for three years, he had to come up to speed quickly on areas where he had limited working knowledge, like worker safety.

“For me, the real question was not, 'How do I find time for safety?' But, 'How do I lead safety without adding another task?'" he says.

In conversations with staff throughout the organization, Roark picked up on a belief shared by many safety professionals: Safety compliance and safety culture sound alike, but they operate on different levels. Compliance is largely the safety director's responsibility; culture is established by leadership.

“I wanted to move us from being compliance-focused to being focused on living safety day in and day out in everything that we were doing," Roark says. “It's not [just] checking the boxes," he adds, but also making sure safety is top of mind when a lineman restores service, or an employee notices a spill in the office.

Efforts to instill a strong safety culture at the organization began about 15 years ago under Roark's predecessor. Since Roark became CEO, he has formalized safety leadership meetings between executives and key safety staff—and he attends them.

“I don't think [Roark] has missed a safety meeting yet. And if he has a scheduling conflict, he asks to move it so he can be there," says Director of Safety and Compliance Justin Glazier.

That consistency and Roark's involvement send a strong message across the co-op: No one gets a break from safety.

“Employees are watching," Roark says. “If you allow exceptions to the rules or you allow safety to slip on those urgent situations, you're sending the message of how important safety really is."

One area where the culture shift manifested was around near misses—when something goes wrong during a job but doesn't result in injury because of luck or a timely intervention. Several years ago, leaders took up the sensitive subject.

“There's a tendency to not talk about near misses for fear of consequences," says Construction Foreman Curtis Chlouber. “People think, 'Is someone going to get in trouble? How will management react?'"

Eventually, the topic became an agenda item during monthly safety meetings of operations staff, and workers embraced the chance to discuss incidents and lessons learned.

“There's a lot of open discussion about gray areas and listening to feedback, rather than just sitting back and doing the same thing we've always done," Chlouber says.

The talks have resulted in tangible improvements: Line crews now place insulated rubber blankets on energized equipment to protect traditional PPE against accidental contacts.

“Now, we see a lot of orange [cover-up] on top of that pole," Chlouber says, adding that the practice only takes a few minutes. “If you make a mistake, now you have a second line of defense."

The safety mindset extends beyond the field. Office workers are also internalizing a safety mindset. One by one, they are obtaining certification from NRECA's Rural Electric Safety Achievement Program, or RESAP.

A safety committee of four employees—two line crews and two office workers—meets monthly. And all staff must complete an online safety training and quiz.

Member Services Supervisor Kayla Hamil, who recently served a two-year stint on the committee, learned about lineworker tailboards, the kickoff meeting that briefs workers on a job's risks.

“The tailboard is an essential step in reminding the workers of risks and to keep safety in the forefront of their minds," she says. “I have adapted the tailboard for my team when we learn or take on a task together."

A commitment to a strong safety culture doesn't come without pressures, like budgetary constraints or heat from members to restore power after an outage.

“The most expensive shortcut we take is something that injures somebody," Roark says. “Incidents are expensive, but those injuries are going to impact families and the morale of our whole team, retention and the trust employees have in us. They're trusting us to prioritize their safety."